Meet the Composer
130 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 7 years ago - ★★★★★ - 219 ratingsPeabody Award-winning podcast that takes listeners into the minds of the composers making some of the most innovative and breathtakingly beautiful music today.
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Episodes
Bonus Track: Excerpts from The Hunger by Donnacha Dennehy
September 09, 2014 04:00 - 15 minutes - 13.8 MBIn 1844, Asenath Nicholson, a school teacher, reformer and proprietor of an all-vegetarian boarding house in New York City, travelled to Ireland to "personally investigate the condition of the Irish poor." Upon her arrival, she saw the beginnings of the Great Famine, a seven-year period of mass starvation and disease in which it is estimated over one million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland. Nicholson's writings and first-hand observations from the time are stitched toge...
Bonus Track: Excerpts from The Hunger by Donnacha Dennehy
September 09, 2014 04:00 - 14 minutes - 13.6 MBIn 1844, Asenath Nicholson, a school teacher, reformer and proprietor of an all-vegetarian boarding house in New York City, travelled to Ireland to "personally investigate the condition of the Irish poor." Upon her arrival, she saw the beginnings of the Great Famine, a seven-year period of mass starvation and disease in which it is estimated over one million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland. Nicholson's writings and first-hand observations from the time are stitched toge...
Donnacha Dennehy: Playlist
August 26, 2014 04:00Hear a piece of music you loved in the show and want to learn or hear more? Scroll down for a complete breakdown of all the music used for scoring and illustration in episode three – Donnacha Dennehy: Composing with Frequency – along with buy links to the albums. Movement One: "Mine is not the standard childhood" 0:19—Donnacha Dennehy: The Hunger | Listen 1:36—Donnacha Dennehy: Grá agus Bás | Watch | Buy 3:24—Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, Mvt. 1 | Watch | Buy 4:29—Ka...
Donnacha Dennehy: II. Grisey, Andrissen and Gender Confusion
August 26, 2014 04:00 - 16 minutesAfter grad school, Donnacha Dennehy wrote to French composer Gérard Grisey asking if he could study with him. Upon receiving a yes, he packed his bags, only to be received with disappointment: Grisey had though Donnacha was a woman. The odd and dissatisfying time that followed led him to study instead with Louis Andriessen, whose passion inspired Dennehy. He received a teaching position, but he was worried he would lose the ability to flex his creative muscles. Then came the Crash Ensemble, ...
Donnacha Dennehy: Composing With Frequency
August 26, 2014 04:00 - 52 minutes - 48.4 MBDonnacha Dennehy is an Irish composer who thought he was going to study with spectral icon Gérard Grisey in Paris. When he showed up, however, it was apparent that Grisey had accepted him into his study under the mistaken notion that he was not, in fact, a gentleman but a lady. A bit put off by Grisey's visible disappointment with his gender, as well as the strikingly uninteresting uniformity in the style of his students work, Donnacha headed to Amsterdam, where he met Louis Andriessen, who...
Donnacha Dennehy: Composing With Frequency
August 26, 2014 04:00 - 52 minutes - 48.2 MBDonnacha Dennehy is an Irish composer who thought he was going to study with spectral icon Gérard Grisey in Paris. When he showed up, however, it was apparent that Grisey had accepted him into his study under the mistaken notion that he was not, in fact, a gentleman but a lady. A bit put off by Grisey's visible disappointment with his gender, as well as the strikingly uninteresting uniformity in the style of his students work, Donnacha headed to Amsterdam, where he met Louis Andriessen, who...
Donnacha Dennehy: I. "Mine is not the standard childhood"
August 26, 2014 04:00 - 17 minutesDonnacha Dennehy found his calling at an early age, recording 25-minute recorder sonatas into cassettes when he was nine and discovering Stockhausen a year later. Now, he's a heavyweight in the world of contemporary music. With his unique use of overtones and deep understanding of the mechanics of sound, his compositional voice stands out. Listen to movement one of Meet the Composer Episode Three.
Donnacha Dennehy: III. Irish Upon a Star
August 26, 2014 04:00 - 18 minutesIn Ireland, "the poet" claims a different role in society than it does in many other parts of the world: one of respect, visibility and wider influence. Dennehy's music is beautifully influenced by the written word, his father being an author, and some of his most known compositions integrate poetry and vocals. In movement three of Episode Three, hear about the background of his piece That the Night Come, which was written for Dawn Upshaw and the Crash Ensemble, that sets W.B. Yeats poems, a...
Andrew Norman: Better Living Through Architecture
July 29, 2014 16:00 - 57 minutes - 52.3 MBAndrew Norman was a well-feted kid composer, a precocious pre-adolescent who wrote works with grand, filmic gestures for his middle school orchestra and had the local newspapers filling their style sections with profiles invoking Mozart. Then he went to college. All of a sudden, Norman's musical world exponentially widened; he was exposed to styles and practices so far outside of his previous experience that he stopped composing altogether. How could he write what he had been writing in a w...
Andrew Norman: Better Living Through Architecture
July 29, 2014 16:00 - 56 minutes - 52.1 MBAndrew Norman was a well-feted kid composer, a precocious pre-adolescent who wrote works with grand, filmic gestures for his middle school orchestra and had the local newspapers filling their style sections with profiles invoking Mozart. Then he went to college. All of a sudden, Norman's musical world exponentially widened; he was exposed to styles and practices so far outside of his previous experience that he stopped composing altogether. How could he write what he had been writing in a w...
Andrew Norman: II. A Whole New World (of Timbre)
July 29, 2014 04:00 - 18 minutesOnce Andrew Norman began to find his modern musical identity, he fully embraced extended techniques on the instruments he writes for—light fingerings on stringed instruments, producing empty, gritty timbres or vertical bow bouncing on the strings, for example—and it contributed to the sonic personality for which he's now known. In movement two of Episode Two, hear Norman and host Nadia Sirota demonstrate some of his newest experiments on the viola and listen to some of his Music in Circles p...
Andrew Norman: III. "Let's do it all."
July 29, 2014 04:00 - 15 minutesIn movement three of Meet the Composer Episode Two, join host Nadia Sirota in opening up the universe that is Andrew Norman's Play for orchestra. He wrote the piece in 2013 for the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and it's a sprawling, 47-minute work that acts as his Symphony No. 1. Like so much of his music, Play comes from countless layers of inspiration, knowledge and philosophical ideas, including those found in your average video game.
Andrew Norman: I. The Kid Is Alright
July 29, 2014 04:00 - 21 minutesFor a pre-teen Andrew Norman, composing was pretty straightforward. Understandable, natural. When it came to college, though, he had the familiar freak-out, leading him to embrace architecture in order to comprehend the "modernist" composers who shattered his previous understanding of music-making. Listen to the first movement of Episode Two to hear how Norman went from prodigious kid composer to the matured voice he is today, using Roman Catholic churches as inspiration along the way.
Andrew Norman: Playlist
July 29, 2014 04:00Hear a piece of music you loved in the show and want to learn or hear more? Scroll down for a complete breakdown of all the music used for scoring and illustration in episode two – Andrew Norman: Better Living Through Architecture – along with buy links to the albums. Movement One: The Kid is Alright 0:12—Andrew Norman: Play | Info 2:48—Andrew Norman: Sabina | Info 8:54—Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony in A Minor, K. 16a Odense | Listen 9:34—Andrew Norman: Play | Info 10:20—Maurice Rave...
Bonus Track: The Wind in High Places by John Luther Adams
July 07, 2014 04:00 - 24 minutes - 22.1 MBGordon Wright, the Alaskan composer, conductor, professor and environmentalist, was John Luther Adams's best friend. When he died suddenly in 2007, Adams wrote three pieces for solo violin titled Three High Places, vignettes representing moments Adams and Wright shared while camping. These pieces eventually led Adams to write his first string quartet, at age 59, called The Wind in High Places. In a process that Adams likens to "primitive man discovers fire," he approached the traditional mus...
Bonus Track: The Wind in High Places by John Luther Adams
July 07, 2014 04:00 - 24 minutes - 22.3 MBGordon Wright, the Alaskan composer, conductor, professor and environmentalist, was John Luther Adams's best friend. When he died suddenly in 2007, Adams wrote three pieces for solo violin titled Three High Places, vignettes representing moments Adams and Wright shared while camping. These pieces eventually led Adams to write his first string quartet, at age 59, called The Wind in High Places. In a process that Adams likens to "primitive man discovers fire," he approached the traditional mus...
Launch Party and Concert: John Luther Adams
July 01, 2014 04:00 - 17 minutesDid you know John Luther Adams moved to New York City? Adams says that, while he and his wife "may have to come and go," they're enjoying the urban alternative to Alaska. Hear more about the transition in his interview with Nadia Sirota, and listen to members of Hotel Elefant perform his Red Arc / Blue Veil for piano, mallet percussion and processed sounds at the Meet the Composer launch party in The Greene Space.
Launch Party and Concert: Donnacha Dennehy
July 01, 2014 04:00 - 19 minutesThe Meet the Composer Launch Party, hosted by Nadia Sirota in The Greene Space, opened with an all-star performance of Donnacha Dennehy's piano trio Bulb and a Skype interview with the composer, who was in Dublin. After listening to the layered, mysteriously forceful trio or watching the video below, hear Dennehy speak about turning the usually-traditional piano trio into a "massive, sonic machine" using overtones based on G.
Launch Party and Concert: Caroline Shaw
July 01, 2014 04:00 - 13 minutesCaroline Shaw, who "triangulate(s) between violin, singing and composing" and is featured in Meet the Composer Episode Four, wrote her piece in manus tuas for solo cello about a neo-gothic church in New Haven, Connecticut. Listen to her interview with Nadia Sirota at the Meet the Composer Launch Party and Concert before hearing the piece performed by cellist Hannah Collins.
Bonus Track: Meet the Composer Launch Party and Concert
July 01, 2014 04:00 - 1 hour - 75 MBQ2 Music celebrated the launch of its inaugural podcast, Meet the Composer, on Tuesday, June 24 at 7 pm with a music party and live video webcast in The Greene Space at WQXR.
Bonus Track: Meet the Composer Launch Party and Concert
July 01, 2014 04:00 - 1 hour - 74.8 MBQ2 Music celebrated the launch of its inaugural podcast, Meet the Composer, on Tuesday, June 24 at 7 pm with a music party and live video webcast in The Greene Space at WQXR. Hosted by Nadia Sirota, the evening included interviews with all five members of Season One of Meet the Composer, including the two most recent Pulitzer Prize winners, John Luther Adams (2014) and Caroline Shaw (2013), as well as fellow innovators Andrew Norman, Marcos Balter, and Donnacha Dennehy. The concert featu...
Launch Party and Concert: Andrew Norman
July 01, 2014 04:00 - 15 minutesAs a composer who is often known for writing grand, voracious pieces, Andrew Norman brings a tangible intensity to each sound in his Peculiar Strokes for string quartet, a piece of miniature works that each display new bowing techniques that he created. Hear each Stroke performed by the Attacca Quartet after listening to Nadia Sirota interview Norman about his viola-centered compositional inspiration.
Launch Party and Concert: Marcos Balter
July 01, 2014 04:00 - 13 minutesMarcos Balter, the subject of Meet the Composer Episode Five, knew it was love at first sight when he heard flutist Claire Chase perform for the first time. This resulted in friendship and collaboration, his piece Pessoa for bass flute and electronics being a result. Hear Chase perform the eerie piece on the stage of The Greene Space for the launch party and hear Nadia Sirota interview Balter about the inspiration for the piece and being labeled as a "Brazilian composer."
Internet Wall of Gratitude
June 30, 2014 04:00Dear friends, We just wanted to thank you again for your amazing support of Meet the Composer. Because of you, we have really been able to sink our teeth into the project and produce something we are very proud of. And now, to show our thanks, (and to fulfill our promises...) we are pleased to unveil the Meet the Composer Internet Wall of Gratitude! Go bask in your own generosity, you deserve it! Seriously, though, you are awesome. We are so psyched to be able to make this show the best ...
John Luther Adams: I. Frank Zappa as Gateway Drug
June 24, 2014 04:00 - 15 minutesJohn Luther Adams didn't start as a composer of vast, powerful swaths of sound. In fact, as a member of a teen rock cover band in New Jersey, his musical roots clash with his current sonic identity. Through Frank Zappa, though, he and his friends discovered the sounds of Edgard Varèse and other maverick composers, beginning his winding path towards an obsession with silence.
John Luther Adams: Bad Decisions and Finding Home
June 24, 2014 04:00 - 52 minutes - 48.2 MBJohn Luther Adams made all of the wrong career decisions. He got kicked out of multiple high schools, went to the "wrong" college, never finished his master's degree, and ultimately moved as close as he could to the edge of society, to a cabin, in Alaska. Somehow, though, all of these unconventional moves crystallized his creative voice into something singular, instantly recognizable, and emotionally mature. Adams's music is fast and slow at the same time, unraveling in fractal patterns tha...
John Luther Adams: III. Weather, Wind and Being Brave
June 24, 2014 04:00 - 18 minutesMusic isn't always constrained to the sonic world. In Adams's work, installations have played a large roll, bringing his sounds to life via geologic activity, weather systems and physical space. In the third movement of episode one, learn about his composing methods and hear the JACK Quartet play part of an unreleased string quartet—Adams's first—called The Wind in High Places. The Wind in High Places will be released in a studio recording in January 2015 on Cold Blue.
John Luther Adams: Playlist
June 24, 2014 04:00Movement One: Frank Zappa as Gateway Drug 0:19—John Luther Adams (JLA): Qilyuan Listen | Buy 1:50—JLA: In the White Silence Listen | Buy 3:21—Frank Zappa: Peaches En Regalia Listen | Buy 4:31—Edgard Varèse: Integrales Listen | Buy 6:38—Frank Zappa: Love Story Listen | Buy 7:46—John Cage: HPSCHD Listen | Buy 9:37—James Tenney: Harmonium #2 Listen | Buy 11:01—James Tenney: Collage #1 (Blue Suede) Listen | Buy 12:51—JLA: Songbirdsongs Listen | Buy Movement Two: "From the moment I arr...
John Luther Adams: Bad Decisions and Finding Home
June 24, 2014 04:00 - 52 minutes - 48.4 MBJohn Luther Adams made all of the wrong career decisions. He got kicked out of multiple high schools, went to the "wrong" college, never finished his master's degree, and ultimately moved as close as he could to the edge of society, to a cabin, in Alaska. Somehow, though, all of these unconventional moves crystallized his creative voice into something singular, instantly recognizable, and emotionally mature. Adams's music is fast and slow at the same time, unraveling in fractal patterns tha...
John Luther Adams: II. "From the moment I arrived, I knew I'd found home."
June 24, 2014 04:00 - 17 minutesWhere do you go when you don't feel at home in Mississippi, New Jersey, Los Angeles or seemingly anywhere? For John Luther Adams, you go off the grid. Far away, to the great white open spaces of Alaska. After moving north in the 1970's, Adams's musical world expanded. The new location inspired the development of the musical fingerprint that has made his pieces so influential and distinctive. He's not all calm, though—listen to the second movement of Episode 01 to dive into the "Dr. Jekyl...